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Introduction
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The registry is what keeps your computer running; it tells the computer what to do when certain events happen. However, as you use your computer, a lot of unwanted and unnecessary information is written into the registry, and this usually occurs because you've installed and uninstalled programs or updated versions of existing programs. This gradual accumulation of unneeded or incorrect information will, over time, slow the speed of your computer. A registry cleaner tries to get rid of this unwanted data and restore your PC to full speed. The problem is that the cleaning process is less than perfect. In particular, there is always a small risk that the registry cleaner may incorrectly remove data that is actually needed. In the worst case scenario, your PC may become unusable as a result. That's why it's absolutely essential that you backup your registry before using a registry cleaner. For most users the easiest way to do this is to create a system checkpoint. An even better way is to use a drive-imaging program to create a snapshot of Windows, which you can use for system recovery if needed. As an added layer of protection, that may actually be more effective than System Restore, consider using the excellent ERUNT utility. This ever-present risk of problems is why the "best" registry cleaner is the one that causes the fewest problems, rather than the one that finds the greatest number of registry errors. Thus it is evident, a registry cleaner is - if at all - a tool reserved for the experienced user. The inexperienced may be assured that since the introduction of Windows XP, registry cleaning is no longer a crucial issue for the stability, security and performance of your system. Don't mess around with it!
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2.0.6.306 
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Anyone tested Auslogics Registry Cleaner??
Linux users ask themselves. Registry......What registry :)
Seriously . Coming from a recovering registry cleaning addict. The process of cleaning ones registry is tricky business. I am not saying not to do it. However the benefits IMHO ...... Are not clear. I could not notice any appreciable difference.
However disk defragmenting (I know off subject) has been my systems best performance booster.
Just my two cents
Cheers
Wdhpr
Gnome has a registry. It even has a registry editor -- gconf-editor. Other desktop environments have similar functionality, although they generally use text files rather than a database backend. Even if you have a headless server you administer via CLI, one might consider the /etc hierarchy to be the HKLM branch of the registry, and all the dot files in ~ to be HKCU.
rojo
ever have random items still left over in your context menu when you right click on something? uninstalling some programs may leave some footprints on your computer such as having some item in your context menu. cleaning your registry files deletes such unused applications.
Macecraft has a free registry cleaner available. It is based on the same scanning engine of JV16 PowerTools.
http://www.macecraft.com/ptlite/
I have Eusing Free Registry Cleaner and I have no complaints. It has quite a nice backup utility. Looks TOO simple but it works great.
Eusing is not free ... they ask for a registration cose that you have to buy. What a scam ...
Wrong. You need to read better the windows where 'ask for a registration'.
Eusing is free. It ask to contribute only.
BTW it's a reliable and trusty Registry Cleaner.
What about Registry Life?
http://www.chemtable.com/RegistryLife.htm
This is the FREE solution/cut down version of Reg Organizer.
Still in 1.0 Beta.
Unstable version.
Would be nice if you could also test Wise Registry Cleaner, CCleaner and jv16 Power Tools Lite.
Wise Registry Cleaner Sucks!!!
Many Complaints against it!!!
CCleaner and jv16 PowerTools Lite
are Reliable applications!
Best free registry cleaner helps u to format your computer n deletes all temporary n corrupted files from your computer.
I agree with this that it is safe , secure and fast ....It could really help to computer give to its 100% performance.........
I really could do without the opinion-fest regarding whether registry cleaners are good or evil: they exist, they perform a function, and the question here for those who choose to use them is whether they do it well, not whether they should do it at all (since they've already made that decision regardless of whether some others might have decided differently).
What I would like to see is more information about how well they *do* perform it. For example, I've tried several and have yet to find one that will catch all dangling references in the registry (e.g., references to files or other objects that do not in fact exist).
This would, for example, help in cleaning up the remnants of uninstalled applications that leave junk behind: it's usually a lot easier to find detritus in the file system under Program Files and Documents and Settings and delete it there than it is to find every Registry reference to such garbage, but then that leaves dangling references in the Registry that can cause problems (yes, I've just finished cleaning up my Registry by hand to resolve one such case). Admittedly this won't get rid of junk that the uninstalled application may have left in the system directories, but once everything else is gone then searching the Registry by application name produces a more manageable number of entries to examine (I didn't check to see whether the available cleaners offer that option to make the manual process easier, but that would be nice to know as well).
- bill
It seems that I should have checked the Register Editor section here before that last parenthetical comment above: RegSeeker, for example, is said to perform that function well.
- bill
"CM DiskCleaner", there...I've said it!
Although, strictly speaking, it's not JUST a Registry Cleaner, this application has,for my money, the best registry scan there is. It'll automatically backup your registry and allow you to configure the scan AND search the registry for a specific value. It's incredibly thorough, to the point that, whenever I reinstall Windows and all my favorite programs, once I'm done I'll always use this great little application first. You just won't believe the amount of crap it's always able to find... Give it a try, you won't regret it.
Here's the quote from Last Freeware Version:
CM DiskCleaner 2.1.7 (last freeware version)
OS: Windows All
"CM DiskCleaner is an application designed to find garbage on your computer. Every computer in use is filled with unnecessary files and registry entries over time. CM DiskCleaner has a unique Registry Cleaner and a Disk Cleaner to help you find this garbage. The Registry Cleaner resolves problems and is the best of it's kind. No difficult choices or settings to select. Created based on our own experience and it resolves a lot of computer problems every day. Designed for both technical and non-technical users."
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page25.html
Moderators comment: Direct download links are not allowed and this one was removed
CM DiskCleaner. Has anyone here tested it? I tried it and it seems excellent, though a bit scary as it finds so much crap. Its also much more than just a reg cleaner. I don't thinks its for novices or the faint hearted. Its a serious application but is it safe? Does anyone here know?
Yes, tested and Rejected!
ok I tried CM Diskcleaner based your recommendation.
I was pleasantly surprised.
It found several thousand garbage files.
At first I was suspicious, but I backed my system up and deleted the 'garbage' as it indicated. WOW what a difference.
My machine is soooo much faster.
I normally use CCleaner and RegSeeker weekly and I thought my machine was pretty clean. A great program. I would give it 5 stars
In my system
(CCleaner, R-Wipe&Clean, ScanDefrag, and Temp File Cleaner by OldTimer),
CM DiskCleaner found less than 1MB!
By default, CM DiskCleaner doesNOT remove the '*.bak' files (BackUp).
Some naive users Check DMCleaner to Clean ADDITIONALLY their '*.bak' files.
Then, they boast about how Thorough DM DiskCleaner is.
When I checked DM DiskCleaner to remove the '*.bak' files,
it found 32MB.
BUT
Only naive users Erase the '*.bak' files and then complain about the instability of their system (e.g. Crashes, Blue Screens of Death etc.)
The guy I worked with servicing PC's used to manage this area and swore by this tool. Certainly if you do feel the need and have knowledge enough to interpret the results then RegSeeker is the one to look at. The sad fact is though that 95% of users overestimate their system skills and end up causing often irreversible damage with these things. Most months our customer flow had more self inflicted problems of this nature to sort out than those caused by infection or hardware failures.
Totally agree. IF IF IF you know what you are doing, RegSeeker is the best free registry cleaner. Yes, it backs up what it deletes.
But not for the novice.
"irreversible" damage?
Instant System Software is the Solution!
Even for Bare-Metal Restoration...
hey got a question..is argente an agressive registry cleaner..
was trying jv16 powertools lite[free]..and it comes with 100% registry pc health.
while argente found 181 errors..also this doesn't defr4ag registry.
Argente is of Questionable Reliability!
jv16 PowerTools Lite [Free] comes from
the Leader in Registry Maintenance!
You may have heard elsewhere, but saying it again... please stay away from Registry Cleaners. They can cause more trouble than they solve. The products listed here on this review are the safe ones. If you use other products, use at your own risk.
Anupam Shriwatri
Any software can cause problems, if it isn't good software.
As for registry cleaners, the guys who write the articles that say that they're bad and you don't need them, must be on glue, period! And no offense to anyone here, but me thinks you just forgot how fast your system used to run. :)
There are a lot of leftover garbage items in a registry when you uninstall software. And it is not because of Windows itself, although it is a bad design to have everything for a program in a central registry, instead of in the program's folder, via .INI/.CFG files. Rather, it is because Windows programmers are almost always sloppy and lazy.
Now if you're a programmer who writes Windows programs, I'm sure that offended you. But you have learned by what you have seen and been told. But if Windows programmers are not typically sloppy and lazy, then why are there so many leftover entries in the registry? And I don't mean user created stuff from using the program, although the uninstall routine should look for those too, but rather, I mean the basic keys and entries that the programs make when installed. Yet after uninstalling them, there they still sit, in the registry! I actually go through and manually delete them, before I run a cleaner, because even they don't get them all.
And no, it isn't from changes I made. I can install a program and then uninstall it and there the keys/entries sit!
And again, no offense, but no excuses guys! You know what you told it to make, so clean up guys!!!
So yes, these cleaners are necessary, because of the sloppiness and laziness of Windows programmers. And yes, there is a difference! I have run a few OS's and never did I see what I see from Windows programmers and their laziness!
Now you can go ahead and fire off at me if it makes you feel better, but the leftover entries are my witness and nothing anyone says will make them all suddenly disappear from everyone's machines.
I personally find (a pay program) to yes, actually do a decent job of cleaning up most of the garbage and yes, to make a system run faster, so that it is noticably quicker right after rebooting.
But for free programs, the one recommended here may be worth a try. Most of the free ones have been garbage, but free stuff is coming a long way and so, I'll take "Gizmo's" word for it. :)
Again, sorry if I offended anyone, but I'm just not the type to stay silent, just because someone might not like what they hear/read. The truth should be stated, so that things can get better. If everyone pretends all is well, then what changes?
Moderators comment:
Commercial software reference removed
Dr. Mark Russinovich is a Technical Fellow working in the Platform and Services division at Microsoft. Russinovich is a widely recognized expert in Windows operating systems. This is what he has to say about registry cleaners.
"I haven’t and never will implement a Registry cleaner since it’s of little practical use on anything other than Win2K terminal servers and developing one that’s both safe and effective requires a huge amount of application-specific knowledge."
Will using Registry Cleaners speed-up my system and make it more reliable?
"It will have no effect on system speed. There is an excellent chance it will make your system less reliable."
I've been following these discussions for years and 95% of the people making other claims are either dreaming or promoting commercial software for their own ends.
I've read that more than once. It isn't true and with all due respect to Mark (he may be a very honest man who's just mistaken), I don't trust what anyone from Microsoft says. But then again, I don't trust any company who has a whole floor on a wing dedicated to their legal team. :)
I have personally installed and run registry repair utilities (maybe that's where this is coming in, cleaner vs repair) on systems that just would lock up and run very sluggishly, if hardly at all (after running the top spyware/malware cleaners and anti-virus on them) and they snapped to life! The problem was with some leftover DLL's that were still being called up, or in some erroneous keys, etc., etc.. Once I had run the utility, Windows was up and running again and in smooth fashion.
So you tell me; Did the util make a difference? :)
Yes, they can be dangerous in the wrong hands. But usually they are those that give some in depth stuff that most users will not understand. For example, JV16 is a great little util, but if you just keep clicking "Delete" instead of "Fix" first, you can damage your system severely.
So you decide. But I know what I've seen and I've been a tech (a real one) for almost 30 years ad I've taught the Windows OS's down to the core of each and I know how they work and how bad they are at keeping the resgisty in good working order (mostly due to programmers not cleaning up properly on uninstall, but also because it's just a bad design to have everything centrally located in a registry like that).
And I wonder if Mark would change his mind if Windows wouldn't run on his system and one of the utils brought it back to life. I mean, has he ever even tried it on a crashing system guys? :)
This is now more true to life "cleaner vs repair" - and I acknowledge that in some circumstances this is needed. The problem is that 95% of the people using these tools do not know what they are trying to achieve, where to look for the solution and what to do with the resulting choices presented by their favorite tool. This is the area Mark was highlighting when he talked about the dangers involved.
I agree with you 100%! And I apologize for not making my statement more clear. Please forgive me for this obvious blunder of mine.
No apologies needed - I'm not exactly crystal clear with some of my own stuff sometimes! Even if we end up in total disagreement this is what I like about TSA and being part of it. Please continue to contribute to our discussions - you are very welcome here.
If what Dr. Mark Russinovich is saying is true about registry cleaners, then why did the aforementioned guru of registry cleaners, "jv16", introduce "Reg Cleaner" (approx. 10 years ago--forerunner of jv16 Power Tools, Reg Supreme, and now also Power Tools Lite) to compete and knock-off Microsoft's own embedded "Reg Clean".
thank you
Individuals and vendors introduce things all the time for a variety of reasons which are of little, no or dubious benefit. Every high street store is full of the stuff.
P.S.: The Windows program uninstall routines don't even clean up the folders off your system half the time (and no, I don't mean because the user added stuff in it) and they spread out data all over the place and leave that as well! Now what is up with THAT?! C'mon guys, no excuses! I'm not supposed to have to check four or five places every time I uninstall a program and yes, it is YOUR fault that I do have to!
And so yes, a good, safe registry cleaner and some user folder "know how", are both important tools when running Windows!
Well no registry cleaner is completely safe - the article also says "a registry cleaner is - if at all - a tool reserved for the experienced user".
Vit Registry Fix never causes a problem for me so I will continue using it. It defiantly makes my computer faster. I'm not an experienced user but it works for me so I'll just keep it.
Argente Registry Cleaner.Is in 10 languages,total free,modules to make:backup,configure,clean registry.You have possibility to exclude,automate,delete backup automate if you want.
Please Christoph: re-check carefully the EasyCleaner functionality. On my version, 2.0.6.380, it has a backup for deleted Registry Keys. Recovery Files are located under the installation directory, subdir: Undo.
To configure it, click on Option button, then there is a specific folder for the System Registry.
Regards
Marco
Nice Article!
http://www.whatthetech.com/2007/11/25/do-i-need-a-registry-cleaner/
This link has been doing the rounds for a while now but thanks for posting it again for the benefit of our more recent visitors. Anyone contemplating this type of software would be well advised to read this first.
The article IS interesting, though it fails to acknowledge the noticeable speed/responsiveness increase that proper cleaning &/or repair can provide. I suspect that for a single use machine it may be correct but it is misleading for anyone having or working on a machine with a history of multiple and changing uses including uninstalling programs.
Try NTRegOptimizer Made by the same people who made ERUNT, same gui too.
That really does work. I've heard all registry cleaners are actually bad for your system. NTREGOPT isn't however. It only compacts your registry and removes empty keys vs deleting data.
The Registry Cleaner of CCleaner
is one of the Safest Registry Cleaners!
-Why isn't the Registry Cleaner of CCleaner
included in the 'Best Free Registry Cleaner' list?
Total lie! CCleaner is one of the worst Registry cleaners you could use. DO NOT EVER use it to clean your registry. It's great for cleaning up everything else on your computer, but never use the tab for Registry. There are dozens of people on their own forum that have complained about it screwing up their computers. I am one of them. Even using Restore function I still haven't been able to get my computer back to normal. For me, it screwed up Windows Explorer. It crashes the first time I right-click on a file or folder. I have to go to Task Manager and close it out, then I can restart it and it works normally. This happens every time I reboot.
At first I didn't know it was CCleaner and actually did it again on my laptop. What a huge pain.
If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know.
I agree that CCleaner is not safe to use. I ran the program after being impressed with the hype and nice interface, then found I was denied access to certain files and folders via Windows explorer. I merged the backup registry but this didn't solve the problem. I had to follow the fix procedure given at
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic8914.html
to enable access to my own folders! I have used other free reg cleaners before such as Regcleaner and RegSeeker without too many problems but am now wary of using any.
I have been using CC Cleaner since over two years now, in all my PCs, with XP Pro & Home, and I had never ever any problem. On the contrary, it is very effective to remove obsolete registry entries, left behind from uninstalled software.
Dim from Greece
Me too. I am using CCleaner for the past two years . No problems till now. Great Software...!
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